2 Samuel 1:10

1:10 So I stood over him and put him to death, since I knew that he couldn’t live in such a condition. ¹  Then I took the crown which was on his head and the ²  bracelet which was on his arm. I have brought them here to my lord.” ³ 

2 Samuel 4:12

4:12 So David issued orders to the soldiers and they put them to death. Then they cut off their hands and feet and hung them ⁴  near the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-bosheth ⁵  and buried it in the tomb of Abner ⁶  in Hebron. ⁷ 

2 Samuel 8:2

8:2 He defeated the Moabites. He made them lie on the ground and then used a rope to measure them off. He put two-thirds of them to death and spared the other third. ⁸  The Moabites became David’s subjects and brought tribute. ⁹ 

2 Samuel 12:20

12:20 So David got up from the ground, bathed, put on oil, and changed his clothes. He went to the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then, when he entered his palace, he requested that food be brought to him, and he ate.

2 Samuel 14:2

14:2 So Joab sent to Tekoa and brought from there a wise woman. He told her, “Pretend to be in mourning ¹⁰  and put on garments for mourning. Don’t anoint yourself with oil. Instead, act like a woman who has been mourning for the dead for some time. ¹¹ 

2 Samuel 21:9

21:9 He turned them over to the Gibeonites, and they executed them on a hill before the Lord. The seven of them ¹²  died ¹³  together; they were put to death during harvest time – during the first days of the beginning ¹⁴  of the barley harvest.

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¹ tn Heb “after his falling”; NAB “could not survive his wound”; CEV “was too badly wounded to live much longer.”

² tc The MT lacks the definite article, but this is likely due to textual corruption. It is preferable to read the alef (א) of אֶצְעָדָה (’ets’adah) as a ה (he) giving הַצְּעָדָה (hatsÿ’adah). There is no reason to think that the soldier confiscated from Saul’s dead body only one of two or more bracelets that he was wearing (cf. NLT “one of his bracelets”).

³ sn The claims that the soldier is making here seem to contradict the story of Saul’s death as presented in 1 Sam 31:3-5. In that passage it appears that Saul took his own life, not that he was slain by a passerby who happened on the scene. Some scholars account for the discrepancy by supposing that conflicting accounts have been brought together in the MT. However, it is likely that the young man is here fabricating the account in a self-serving way so as to gain favor with David, or so he supposes. He probably had come across Saul’s corpse, stolen the crown and bracelet from the body, and now hopes to curry favor with David by handing over to him these emblems of Saul’s royalty. But in so doing the Amalekite greatly miscalculated David’s response to this alleged participation in Saul’s death. The consequence of his lies will instead be his own death.

⁴ tn The antecedent of the pronoun “them” (which is not present in the Hebrew text, but implied) is not entirely clear. Presumably it is the corpses that were hung and not merely the detached hands and feet; cf. NIV “hung the (their NRSV, NLT) bodies”; the alternative is represented by TEV “cut off their hands and feet, which they hung up.”

⁵ tc 4QSam^a mistakenly reads “Mephibosheth” here.

⁶ tc The LXX adds “the son of Ner” by conformity with common phraseology elsewhere.

⁷ tc Some mss of the LXX lack the phrase “in Hebron.”

⁸ tn Heb “and he measured [with] two [lengths] of rope to put to death and [with] the fullness of the rope to keep alive.”

⁹ tn Heb “and the Moabites were servants of David, carriers of tribute.”

¹⁰ tn The Hebrew Hitpael verbal form here indicates pretended rather than genuine action.

¹¹ tn Heb “these many days.”

¹² tc The translation follows the Qere and several medieval Hebrew mss in reading שְׁבַעְתָּם (shÿva’tam, “the seven of them”) rather than MT שִׁבַעְתִּים (shiva’tim, “seventy”).

¹³ tn Heb “fell.”

¹⁴ tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss in reading בִּתְחִלַּת (bithkhillat, “in the beginning”) rather than MT תְחִלַּת (tÿkhillat, “beginning of”).